Adventures of a Yaadie in North Carolina

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Last week I found out that my Speech-Language Pathology Master’s program is ranked 30th in the US. My first thought was, how the hell did I get in? It was then that I realised that self-doubt is a heck of a thing. What I should have asked was: Why wouldn’t I get in? I had good grades, a solid resume, an interesting story and I worked my butt off!

Why was I so quick to discredit my accomplishments? I blame the world we live in. We are incredibly competitive and are constantly being told we’re not good enough. If we hear it often enough we start to believe it and in comes self doubt.

Why are we so quick to discredit our accomplishments? There has to be something each of us is absolutely fantastic at, no matter how trivial or useless we think it seems. Whenever we doubt ourselves, we must think about that thing, remind ourselves that we’re God’s greatest gift to man, den wheel an’ come again! Hell, even if we feel like God’s okay gift to man, we’ll just pretend we’re the greatest and strive for our goals.

Just remember, perfection is unattainable, mistakes are inevitable, and neither should sway us on our journey to success.

A recent trend on Twitter has been the question: “What is Twitter angry about today?” This not-a-joke joke emerged as it seemed every day there was some grand, world ending debate going on. We’d be in a huff about everything from standards of equality right through to the superiority of one music genre to another. At the end of the day someone makes an ass out of themselves and the discussion topic disappears for a few days or months. Missed it the first time round? That’s just fine, because you can rest assured that it will rear its ugly head several times in your lifetime. Everyone has to get a piece of the pie right?

All of this has me wondering, are we becoming too sensitive? In my cultural class the professor invited two Muslim women with slightly different beliefs to speak to the class. A common thread in their stories was how some people were often afraid to approach them, and those who did were afraid to offend them by asking them questions.

Isn’t it funny how our attempts to be politically correct are hindering our chances at making friendships and meaningful cultural exchanges? We’re so hung up on our differences that we forget we are all human beings trying to navigate this overly complicated world.

An example brought up in the class discussion was how we’ve moved away from saying Merry Christmas to Happy Holidays because not everyone celebrates Christmas. Our guest speakers mentioned how they would often respond to Happy Holiday wishes by saying Merry Christmas. For them, the focus is not on which holiday is being celebrated but on the wishes of happiness.

At the end of the day, if you look at how different cultures celebrate their holidays, family, friends and food are often at the core. Even if it doesn’t seem like it, we’re more similar than we think we are. Yes, our differences contribute to the beauty of the world but it’s full time we realised our similarities are what connect us to each other.

I hope this is what you needed to hear today. Go out and bridge the culture gap!

Welcome back friends! Not sure how you got here? You can find Pt.I here.

We piled all of our stuff into the rental car, programmed the GPS, and we were off. We would be at our hotel in 10 minutes. Our GPS’s name is Nuri by the way because my family names everything. Anywho, daddy opted against updating Nuri before we left home because he did it in May when he came to my graduation. Not much could change in 4 months right?

We’re driving along and we’re on a highway that Nuri doesn’t recognise. Now she a work overtime and a recalculate out hell and we a drive pon a road weh lead to God he knows where. We decide to get off at the the next exit so we kept going; ever ready for an adventure.

The further we go along this highway though, I’m noticing less and less cars until, I kid you not, it’s just us. Never before have I encountered a highway with just one car. A wah dis? We finally make it to an exit and by this time our ETA is 40 minutes. I assess our surroundings and mi feel mi hawt drop right dung a mi belly bottom.

If I thought I was in country before, Ha! Friends, there were tractors. Tractors!!! Naturally, I start panicking. I have an iron-tight grip on the arm rest and my breathing is shallow. My eyes are darting from one side of the road to the other. This was how I would die. As far as I was concerned, there was a snake seconds away from infiltrating our car.

Never in the history of ever has telling a person to calm down ever aided that person in calming down but that’s exactly what my mother did. She gave me no choice… I bit her head off. She has since recovered.

I soon realised that snakes would be the least of my worries. The trees we passed were covered in huge ass spider webs. Whatever mek dem web deh, cudda draw weh smaddy. I did not sign up for this. These are the kinds of things schools should put in their brochures!

What the hell is that?

Nuri eventually guided us the hotel. It was in a heavily populated area with an abundance of cars. I knew I’d be safe there for the night so I knocked right out. It has been two weeks since and thankfully, there hasn’t been any snake sightings.

1) Challenge me. I like someone who can pick my brain and prove me wrong. A mini pet peeve of mine is when someone lets me win. I am unnecessarily competitive and I think that someone who challenges me is helping me to become better at whatever task is at hand.

2) Understand me. I am an only child. I grew up learning how to entertain myself and I’ve learned to appreciate alone time as a result. I love going out with friends, but sometimes all I want to do is stay in a room by myself and do whatever I want.

3) Feed me. I’m not joking. Give me food, and I’ll love you forever.

4) Cuddle with me. I wouldn’t say I’m a touchy feely person but I do fancy random hugs. I don’t mean those awkward side hugs; I like the close, warm, I-haven’t-seen-you-in-forever hugs

5) Talk to me. I love deep conversations. We could be talking about the colour of the sky or who invented the television, whatever it is, simple or complex I love thought provoking conversations.

I’m finding in my old age (says the 21 year old) that I’m becoming increasingly better at holding conversations. A great conversation skill is being able to state your point, defend it, acknowledge that people have different opinions and respect opposing opinions.

I like a good debate. It keeps me on my toes and provides great mental exercise.
Picture for a moment a game of tennis. It would be a boring if your opponent refused to serve the ball because they didn’t feel like playing. Imagine them purposefully wacking the ball into the net to cut the game short. What if they deliberately hit the ball outside of the lines so you win?

Annoyed? Well, it’s the same way with a conversation. Stop changing the topic by saying you don’t want to argue. Don’t stop in the middle or agree with the other person just because you want the conversation to end. A disagreement is not an argument. How is your conversation partner supposed to know what you’re thinking if you keep quiet?

One of the things wrong with the world is that we don’t say what we want to say for the sake of peace and sanity. What we don’t realise is that when we bottle these things up they slowly eat away at us and that is what we should be avoiding .

I’ll leave you with these words of wisdom, Always say what’s on your mind, and don’t beat around the bush #StopBushAbuse2017.

I was at work today either working hard or hardly working – you decide ;)- and I had this thought. I work from 8-5 then I get home, eat dinner and fall asleep shortly thereafter. The cycle repeats itself for four more days.
I sit at a desk for 8 hours staring at a computer screen typing and calling people who don’t want to be called and being polite to people who can’t even spell the word polite. All in the name of expensive text books that I have to buy for a school with a ridiculously high tuition so I can get a job that pays well so I can afford to repay loans I had to take out for the school fee. Then when that’s done im expected to have children to prepare the next generation’s workforce and the cycle continues.
Who the hell invented work? Why cant we plant trees and trade berries? Okay that’s a lie I really don’t mind work I just wish it wasn’t so uptight. Like… everything about the work process is so … ugh. First you have to pick out clothes from days in advance, make sure they’re office appropriate, iron them, wake up at ungodly hours to eat and get dressed. Get to the office where there is a clearcut hierarchy of who’s important and who… does all the work for little or nothing.

Stay in line because if you don’t you run the risk of losing your job and you really need it!

It’s finals week and Bob Marley makes good studying music so that’s what I’ve been listening to. I also leave Rochester for Jamaica in a couple days. This song I’m about to share is representative of all the above. It counts down the days and has the word ‘work’ in it a whole bunch. I know looking at it this way misses the true meaning but you know what, at this point in time this is how I interpret it.